The divine sleeps in the rock, breathes in the plant, dreams in the animal, and wakes in man.
Last night I drew a blank with writer’s block, so I went to sleep. I found myself awake at 4 AM, the hour of the morning star. There was complete darkness and total silence: no machines, no traffic sounds, and too early for the birds. Even my mind was utterly silent. There was a space for lustful fantasies, or thoughts of resentments, slights, envy, and anger to arise, yet the Silence remained. Mary was stepping on the serpent’s head, keeping his temptations at bay.
Wisdom spoke to me. I tried to remember it all as it happened, hoping nothing would be forgotten. When written, it never comes out exactly the way I first heard it. There were revelations about Nyx that I had never suspected. These are the mental notes.
I am Matter although I go by many names: death, sleep, turmoil, night, darkness, void, abyss, silence. I was there at the primeval chaos. From nothing, I created everything, then the rhythm of night and day, the dark and the bright. Yet the Silence remained. There was no experience, no one hears the sounds. Just the rhythm of inhalation and exhalation.
There is no pause from me, no day of rest. I am ineluctable, unstoppable, relentless, unchangeable, unforgiving. I cannot be appeased; I do not negotiate; I cannot be reasoned with; I do not answer prayer. I made your blood so your blood sacrifice just gives me back what is mine; it changes nothing.
I created time and space. You think the universe is too large or too old? Time is meaningless to me. I have time. Space is too large? Compared to what?
Earth is a favoured place. It took great patience to create that speck of dust in the void even if I am master of the sky, the earth, the seas. I created earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tsunamis. They are subject to my power. They are unavoidable and unpredictable despite your science. Laws? I don’t follow any laws. I work by chance, by trial and error. It takes time and it takes space to get results.
Earthquakes are good for the earth. They purify it; they shape the continents.
I created plants to live off the energy of the sun. They breathe but do not hear.
I created animals to live off the energy of the plants. It was a long process of trial and error. Mutations both good and bad, some too grotesque to mention. The animals dream but do not know me. They experience fear but are not yet horrified by me. I created enormous cruelties that the animals endured in their struggle to exist. To them, it was just another dream
I needed beings who can think about my accomplishments. I waited, I prepared the ground. Then I saw it; I saw a shadow in the shape of a man. I cannot see above, but I could see the shadow growing larger. I fashioned bodies to receive them. I waited patiently; I had no doubt that the beings whose shadows I save would come to earth.
Then they appeared, confused and anxious. I forced them to live like the animals, their security always in doubt. They had to struggle to survive just as animals do. But I did not subdue them with sleep as I did with the animals.
I am cruel. I made them conscious of their pain and despair. I made them worry about the future. I made them aware of guilt and shame, which persisted long after the initial cause. I made them suspicious of each other as they multiplied. I gave them earthquakes, storms, volcanoes.
I gave them faith when there is nothing to believe in.
I gave them hope when there is nothing better to hope for.
I gave them love when nothing is lovable.
They delude themselves when they just follow inner impulses implanted in them.
There is no exit.
Few face up to it.
Unlike the Solar calendar, in the Lunar calendar the day begins in darkness and ends in light.
Lil itty bitty of my own mustard:
I’m a programmer, and there you always test before you go live with a system (ideally, and especially if money is involved).
What if… Before committing to spawning this world and then in there yourself as human, what if, whatever was before the inception of this universe, ran some “tests”.
Imagine how you would “feel” and “measure” out the earth to create a human. Stone dreams of grass so it can breathe, grass dreams of animals so it can move, animals … lets stay at the grass level. grass then looks at the animals and remembers that it can think, and now has good measurements of the earth and spawns there as a human.
Well that’s a wild fairy tale.
“Only man, to whom I had given all the good things in my power; only man, who by my decrees lifts his face high and turns it towards heaven; only man, whom I form and bring to birth in the true shape of his master; only man, who has received three physical and spiritual forces from me, his mistress (for I can truthfully say that it is I who give him existence, life, and feeling); only wretched man….he is companion to all the things enclosed in the whole world and shares their bounty–having existence in common with the stones, life with the thick grass, and feeling with the dumb beasts, and he is yet capable of still more in that he has understanding in common with the angels; only man–what more can I say of him?–who has everything one can hope for, who is a new world in miniature; only man, I say, causes me more distress than any wolf-cub.
…But Our Lord Jesus knows that all the things I have mentioned, I did for man. My work has been on behalf of that wretch who is the culmination of all my endeavors and who alone defies my laws. No payment will suffice him, disloyal renegade that he is, nothing will satisfy him. What is the use? What more can I say? The honours I have heaped upon him could not be told, and in return he inflicts uncountable and innumerable shames upon me.”
–Voice of Nature, from Chapter 10 of Romance of the Rose (translation by F. Horgan)
Beautiful reflection – relentless as the eternity of the night sky. To dally on the knife’s edge of the pit of despair, daring to take in the void, courageously turning away to live some more.
Last night I dreamt of my paternal grandmother who died when I was around five.
When she was alive, my job was to take her dinner on summer evenings. She lived in a separate part of the house which had its own entrance so I had to walk around the main house and down some steps. I always took my time due to the responsibility.
She would sit alone in her armchair with the front door open listening to the birds evensong and watching news on tv, scotch and water on her side table, a packet of butterscotch sweets wrapped in cellophane beside the tumbler.
She would thank me with a smile deep in to my eyes and give me a butterscotch- her eyes were lovely still at 65 or so. That was my reality of her.
In the (freakishly lucid) dream she was taking some exercise outside, pacing between the stone steps and the garden table in the sunshine. I could see her from the sink.
I had to feed the children. She came inside once they had been subdued with food.
I asked her what she would eat- sandwich, risotto, salad? No thank you. Something extremely sweet? Yes please, that sounds lovely.
We smiled at one another, realising it was a dream and silently agreed not to mention it to the children in case they opted not to eat up all their lunch… it being a metaphysical situation where behavioural rules were murky.
I went to the freezer and got a thin ice-cream sandwich covered in chocolate, wrapped in a crinkly cellophane wrapper and handed it over.
While I did kitchen work I glanced at her now and then biting contentedly opposite the children at the table.
This dream was more visceral than most of my day today.
It seemed that, by bringing her in to my consciousness, she enjoyed a casual form of lived reality while she waits, dissipated, out in the void. I hope she repays the favour when I’m the one waiting out there again.
Well not very consoling but then as someone said ( Guenon? ) truth doesn’t have to be consoling. In any case there is one source for everything I suppose.
The one who stays true to nature, will access the wisdom he needs
Reality will not fit, into vain mental beliefs
Don’t obstruct your inner vision, dare to look into the void
Be an esoteric nihilist,
Not a computer droid
God is too big to hold on to,
So don’t you even try
For if you try to catch him,
He will leave your imagination dry.